Shoulder Pain in Spinal Cord Injured Patients in Rehabilitation Program with Electrical Stimulation

In this study we performed clinical and radiographic evaluation of the shoulder of tetraplegic and paraplegic patients who attend rehabilitation program with electrical stimulation. The objective was to establish the usefulness of radiography as a trial exam for shoulder pain in spinal cord injured patients. Thirty two shoulders of sixteen patients were evaluated by clinical exam and radiography. Patients were divided into two groups: paraplegic and tetraplegic. A control group of 16 normal volunteer subjects was selected. Shoulder pain was reported in 88.89% of tetraplegic and 42.85% of paraplegic. The time of injury ranged from 1.5 – 22 years (mean 7.88 years); patients had a mean age of 34.68 years (range, 21-57 years). The acromioclavicular joint space ranged from 0.03-0.7cm on the right side and 0.15-0.7cm on the left side, with a mean of 0.37 and 0.41cm respectively. No correlation was found between shoulder pain and gender, age or time since injury. There was a trend to correlation between shoulder pain and type of injury with tetraplegic having a tendency to pain symptoms. On average, tetraplegic had smaller acromioclavicular joint.